ppose that is all that can be done, Lettice. I am very sorry that
my darling is in trouble; but if I could help you, you would tell me
more."

Then she left the room, and Lettice went to her desk and wrote her
letter.

"DEAR MR. DALTON,--When you asked me yesterday if there was any one
to whom I had given my love, I said there was no one. I ought to
have thought at the time that this was a question which I could not
fairly answer. I am obliged now to confess that my answer was not
sincere. You cannot think worse of me than I think of myself; but I
should be still more to blame if I allowed the mistake to continue
after I have realized how impossible it is for me to give you the
answer that you desire. I can only hope that you will forgive me
for apparently deceiving you, and believe that I could not have
done it if I had not deceived myself. Sincerely yours,

"LETTICE CAMPION."

It was written; and without waiting to criticize her own phrases, she
sent it to the Palazzo Serafini by a special messenger.

Brooke Dalton knew that he did not excel in letter writing. He could
indite a good, clear, sensible business epistle easily enough; but to
express love or sorrow or any of the more subtle emotions on paper would
have been impossible to him. Therefore he did not attempt the task. He
at once walked over to Mrs. Hartley's villa and asked to see Miss
Campion.

He was almost sorry that he had done so when Lettice came down to him in
the little shaded _salon_ where Mrs. Hartley generally received
visitors, and he saw her face. It was white, and her eyes were red with
weeping. Evidently that letter had cost her dear, and Brooke Dalton
gathered a little courage from the sight.

She came up to him and tried to speak, but the words would not come.
Brooke was not a man of very quick intuitions, as a rule; but in this
case love gave him sharpness of sight. He took her hand in both his own
and held it tenderly while he spoke.

"There is no need for you to say anything," he said; "no need for you to
distress yourself in this way. I have only come to say one thing to you,
because I felt that I could say it better than I could write it. Of
course, I was grieved by your note this morning--terribly grieved
and--and--disappointed; but I don't think that it leaves me quite
without hope, after all."

"Oh," Lettice was beginning in protest; but he hushed her with a
pressure of